Fiotestudo
by Greathe
Summary: 3rd Year. "Yes Lily was smart, but she had never felt the need to 'beat' another student at anything. Well, with one notable exception." Lily/James. One-shot.


_**Fiotestudo**_

**Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Harry Potter. Those rights belong to J.K. Rowling and the companies involved in publishing her work. Anything you see in this story that you recognize belongs to the aforementioned parties.**

**_Summary: __3rd Year. "Yes Lily was smart, but she had never felt the need to "beat" another student at anything. Well, with one notable exception." Lily/James. One-shot. _**

_**A/N: This is the third of my loosely connected one-shots I'm writing about the MWPP era. There is absolutely no reason you have to read the other two, as both take place after this story anyways. Many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Estoma.**_

For a girl who was already labeled the "brightest witch of her age" by some of her professors, Lily Evans was surprisingly laid back when it came to academics.

She had never been the most competitive student at the school. She was not like Remus, who would have willingly spent whole weekends cooped up with his textbooks if not for the interference of his dorm mates. Nor was she like Severus, who would stay in the dungeons after class on Fridays to continue working on whatever potions they had been creating. Lily certainly studied, but not more so than your average student.

Her lack of competitive drive was made up for with natural talent. Lily was an intelligent girl with a keen memory. She wasn't as willing as her friends were to throw around the term photographic memory, because she was rubbish at remembering faces, and even worse when it came to remembering people's names. Lily would admit to a talent for the remembering the written word. As such she tended to be within the top five ranking of every subject, and held the top spot in her favorite subjects (Charms and Potions, though she wasn't positive the latter accolade was truly deserved given Professor Slughorn's blatant favoritism).

Yes Lily was smart, but she had never felt the need to "beat" another student at anything. Well, with one notable exception.

"Class, please take your seats. We have a very important lesson today. Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, that includes the two of you."

Lily glanced back at the two trouble makers. James and Sirius were in the middle of a mock sword fight, using quills in place of swords. In the five minutes since Lily had last seen them, they had somehow managed to become decked out in full pirate garb. James began to lower his "sword" at Professor McGonagall's words, which Sirius apparently decided was the opening he'd been waiting for. He delivered a killing blow, jabbing the end of his quill at James chest. Ignoring James' indignant "Hey!" Sirius flashed McGonagall his best smile.

"Argh, if the Lady Minnie desires it," he said, swaggering towards his usual spot at the back of the class as he spoke, "I'll gladly oblige. I just had to slay this scalawag first. Argh!"

Lily couldn't quite resist laughing with the rest of the class. Sirius' attempt at a "pirate" accent was rather pitiful. Professor McGonagall, however, was much less amused.

"Mr. Black," she said sternly, "Do I even need to say it at this point?"

Sirius shook his head, apparently unconcerned. "Detention, tonight, seven o'clock, your office. Is that about the gist of it?" he asked in his normal voice.

Again most of the class laughed, though this time Lily didn't join in; the casual way he treated detentions irked her. McGonagall gave a curt nod in response before moving on.

"Last week," she said, "I told you we would be focusing on a spell that will be included as part of your final exam. I'm sure by now you have all noticed the teapots in front of you. You will shortly be attempting to transfigure those teapots into tortoises. Now before we begin there are a few warnings I must..."

Lily paid special attention to the Professor's lecture, despite having read up on the spell since McGonagall's announcement the previous week that they would be focusing on it. She had read her way through sections on the spell from ten different books; including one she had borrowed from a fifth year student. She had even practiced the spell on an old teapot she'd borrowed from the Gryffindor table the night before, something that McGonagall would have certainly given Lily a detention for if she ever found out.

Normally Lily wouldn't have been caught dead doing that much prep work for a spell that hadn't even been covered in class yet, but this was not a typical case. This time, Lily was determined.

After all, the person she was trying to beat was James Potter, and no amount of prep work was worthless if it meant Lily would finally win.

James Potter was Professor McGonagall's favorite student. That much was obvious to everyone with the possible exception of James himself. It was hard to believe that a strict disciplinarian like McGonagall could possibly favor a trouble maker like James, but for some reason she had a soft spot for him.

Lily knew part of the reason James was McGonagall's favorite was because of his Quidditch skill, but the bigger part of it was his skill in her chosen subject. There was no denying the trace of genius in James' transfiguration prowess. Ever since first year, he'd been able to master in minutes transfigurations that took the rest of the class hours. He had yet to receive less than top marks on any of his spell work. If he hadn't had the habit of procrastinating with essays he would have been at the top of the class.

It was another well-known fact that half of James' detentions with McGonagall were less like detentions and more like advanced coursework for her class. Rumor had it he had already progressed to vanishing objects, which was normally relegated to fifth year material.

Lily really didn't mind that; it would have been hypocritical if she had, since Professor Flitwick had her working on fourth year material in class instead of what everyone else was working on, and was expecting that, at the rate she was going, she would have sixth year material finished by the end of her fifth. The problem was that lately James had begun to show off in the most arrogant way possible.

It had started three months prior. During Transfiguration, as everyone else worked on the assigned spell, James would spend his time fooling around until another student looked like they were close to succeeding. Then, he would pull out his wand and manage his transfiguration before they did, stealing the credit for accomplishing the spell first.

When she'd first noticed this phenomenon Lily had assumed it was just coincidence. Then she'd thought she must be imagining it, her dislike of James clouding her perception. But as days turned into weeks, it became apparent that it wasn't just in her head. This was made even more obvious when she noticed James would have a smirk on his face every time he did it; the same smirk he had whenever he'd gotten away with something. After a while, it seemed as though that smirk was directed towards her, as if he'd caught onto the fact that she was aware of what he was doing and was rubbing her nose in it.

Lily felt this was a new low for James. It was one thing to pick fights with Sev, or play hurtful pranks; but showing off at the expense of other students who were working hard, in effect putting them down for being less talented than he was… it was callous, and that made it feel worse to Lily than any of his pranking.

However, Lily couldn't come up with a way to confront James about it, because technically he wasn't doing anything wrong; after all, it wasn't as if James was precisely hurting anyone. His little game was annoying, but not overtly cruel, and even if she had complained about it to a professor, he could hardly be punished for doing well in class. As such Lily had tried to ignore it, telling herself it wasn't really her problem anyway.

Every time he pulled his little stunt, however, it irked her more than the last. With each passing week her annoyance grew, fueled by every disappointed look from a fellow student and each smirk from him, until finally she couldn't take it any longer. She needed to put a stop to it. So she had started working twice as hard as she ever had in McGonagall's class, reading textbooks and practicing incantations late into the night in the hopes of catching James off guard and wiping the smug look off of his face.

So far she had been unsuccessful. And each failure made Lily more desperate to succeed, to the point where her friends thought she was obsessed. But today, Lily was sure she was going to be able to beat him. She had managed to pull off the spell the night before, and was confident in her ability to do so again. She was positive James would never expect her to pull off the transfiguration so quickly.

_I've got him, _she thought. _I'm going to beat him!_

The thought filled her with a sort of mad glee that nearly overwhelmed her. She was barely suppressing diabolical laughter. She wasn't quite able to subdue the huge smile plastered on her face. After nearly a month of trying, the thought of success was exhilarating.

"- and so you must learn from Sir Ently's example, and be very careful with your pronunciation of this spell. The incantation is _Fiotestudo_, and most certainly not _Fi__**e**__otestudo_." McGonagall paused and gave Marlene McKinnon a pointed look. Lily's friend sank lower in her chair, pulling some of her brown hair in front of her face to hide the blush that was forming. Lily pulled her mind away from her fantasies of victory long enough to turn to flash her friend a sympathetic smile.

Apparently assured that her point had been made, McGonagall continued "Now, if you would turn your attention over to your teapot…"

Lily did so, eager to get underway…

And then froze.

_Oh…_

The teapot looked as though it had been painted by a small child. Random patterns of blues, greens and browns were splotched onto the pot. Chips in the paint revealed a clayish grey underneath. She noticed slight cracks, one larger one across the handle, and a few smaller ones on the outside. None of these things bothered Lily; after all, the point of the lesson was to make the teapot into something else; what did it matter what it looked like?

No, what caught Lily's immediate attention was the fact that the teapot was _small_.

It was certainly smaller than the one she had been practicing with. It was perhaps half the size of her practice teapot, if that. And this presented a huge snag in Lily's victory plans.

Size mattered in transfiguration. The general rule was the closer in size the object you are trying to create was to the original object, the easier the transfiguration would be. It was certainly possible to transfigure a thumbtack into an owl, for example, but it was much more difficult. Ideally you wanted an item that was sized compatibly with your end goal.

This, of course, meant there was a huge snag in Lily's plan.

_Bollocks…_

"Lily, are you alright?"

The whisper to Lily's left made her realize she had stopped paying attention to the class around her. McGonagall was still lecturing, something about how the spell would be used in their final exam.

Lily turned towards the whisperer, and replied. "I'm fine Marlene."

Marlene, who was well aware of Lily's crusade to beat James, gave her a disapproving look. "You should let it go, you know."

Lily's only response was to shake her head. She had been hearing that argument from Marlene and Selene for the last week and a half, and wasn't in the mood to get into it again, especially when there were more important things for her to be focusing on.

McGonagall had reached the end of her lecture.

"Now, if you would all pull out your wands and begin working-"

Lily didn't wait for McGonagall to finish. She grabbed her wand, which had been sitting on her desk, and pointed it at her teapot.

"_Fiotestudo_!"

The teapot began to morph before her eyes, taking on the general shape and coloration of a tortoise, and for a moment Lily believed she had succeeded. But the final result was less than perfect. While the animal that she'd formed was most definitely a tortoise, and even had the correct coloration for the fleshy part of its body, the tortoise's shell was much less perfect. While the shape it had taken seemed to be correct, it still had the coloration and patterns of the original teapot. And while Lily couldn't be certain without actually touching it, it looked like the shell was made from pottery clay. And of course there was the slight trail of steam emanating from the tortoise's nostril.

In the past such a success on her first attempt at a transfiguration would have made Lily happy. But under these circumstances she felt more like a failure. Lily felt herself sink in her chair, as if conceding some sort of defeat.

Marlene's own first attempt had been far less successful. She had developed a notorious habit for mispronouncing new incantations, often with disastrous results. This time, her transfigured teacup didn't resemble a tortoise so much as it did a pile of silly putty. She had been reconciled to such a result, but could hardly say she was pleased about it. When she saw Lily's result, her resigned scowl was replaced with a look of glee. As she took in Lily's reaction, however, she rolled her eyes.

"Lily, you need to let this thing about Potter go. I don't understand why it's so important to you."

Lily reversed her first attempt with an angry "Reparifarge" before turning to offer a response, mentally steeling herself to have this conversation once again. "No. He doesn't get to win today. Not today."

"Why do you have to beat him at all though?" Marlene asked, muttering her own counter-spell to clear away her attempt.

"Fiotestudo." Again the tortoise was a little less than perfect. Lily cleared the defunct tortoise away with another flick of her wand before responding. "Because he's an arrogant prick and someone has to teach him a lesson."

At this point Selene Goodman, who had been wrapped up in her own attempts at the spell, leaned in from Lily's left to join the conversation. "And you think killing yourself trying to compete with him at his best subject is the way to do it?" she asked pointedly, pushing her glasses up her nose with her index finger as she spoke.

Lily didn't hesitate with her answer. "Yes! Because what else can I do?"

Lily started to cast the incantation a third time, but stopped short when her arm was gently grasped by Marlene.

"Why now though?" Marlene asked. "You've known him for almost three years now? Heck, in our first year you-"

Lily cut her off before she could finish that sentence, her voice taking on a darker, more fragile tone as she met her friend's eyes. "Don't go there Mar. Just don't."

Marlene's gaze softened as their eyes met. She nodded her head slowly in acquiescence and let go of Lily's arm. "Sorry."

Selene wasn't as willing as Marlene was to drop the subject, however. "Her point still stands though. He's been like this since first year, and you haven't tried to do anything about it before now. So what changed?"

Lily bit her bottom lip and leaned back in her chair, giving the conversation her full attention for the first time since it had begun.

"Because I'm tired of it. I'm tired of him getting away with whatever he wants. He bullies first years, Slytherins, my best friend, and until recently me. He has broken the hearts of eight girls in the nine months since this year started, and when their 'relationship' is over he treats them horribly. He pulls these stupid pranks that everyone thinks are funny, until they are the ones victimized by one. He is out of control, and no one seems willing to do anything about it beyond assigning detentions, and it isn't as if those have any effect on him. Someone needs to do something to deflate his head, and it might as well be me."

All of this seemed to spill out of her, at a rate where she only realized what she was saying after she'd said it. But she couldn't stop herself.

"And I'm choosing to make a stand on this, because it's a new low. Undercutting the accomplishments of others, rubbing their faces in the fact that he's better at something than they are, it's a… it's like…"

Lily was waving her hand in front of her, as if grasping for the words to describe the levels to which James had sunk in her mind. After a moment, she found them, grasping her hand into a fist as if wrapping her fingers around the word.

"It's _petty_. It is so petty, and I can't stand pettiness. I really can't. I get…"

Lily trailed off. She had been about to say "I get enough of that from Petunia," but couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud. Selene and Marlene were aware of Lily's problems with her sister, but it was still hard for her to talk to them about it.  
Selene and Marlene didn't respond, perhaps overwhelmed by the length of Lily's answer. Or perhaps because neither wanted to point out that Lily's attempts to beat James at his own subject were equally petty, which deep down she already knew. Regardless, Lily took their silence as a sign that the conversation was over for now. She took a deep breath to center herself, and turned back to the teapot resolutely.

"_Fiotestudo_!"

Lily felt she had succeeded before she saw it with her own eyes. Sitting before her was a perfect tortoise, looking as real and normal as if it had been hatched instead of created magically. She smiled in spite of herself, sure that James had already stolen her thunder but unable to shake the sense of accomplishment from having managed the spell at all.

Professor McGonagall, who had been walking around the class looking at their results, closed in to inspect her tortoise.

"Well done Miss Evans," she said. "Ten points for being the first to accomplish this spell. Class, if you would take a look at Miss Evans tortoise…"

As McGonagall's words sank in, Lily felt a surge of excitement. She had done it. She had beaten James to the punch. She turned around, unable to wipe away a satisfied smile that looked dangerously like a smirk from her face. She turned and looked at him, emerald eyes locking with hazel ones-

But he didn't look angry or disappointed. He was grinning at her. Not condescendingly; this wasn't his superior smirk. This smile was one of the most genuinely kind she had ever seen on his face. She broke eye contact, and examined his desk to see that the teapot in front of him was untouched. He hadn't even attempted the spell.

In short, James Potter had _let her win_.

A mix of emotions seemed to war for dominance; frustration that she hadn't truly beaten him, sadness that all her work had gone to waste, shock that James Potter would ever let anyone beat him, and something else she didn't recognize. In the end, the last emotion won out.

**A/N: Well that is that. It took months longer than I ever wanted it to, but I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. Feel free to leave a review, even if you didn't like it. If you didn't like it though, please be constructive, and not crass.**


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